No mention of 'The consequences of love', 'Silver City' and 'Maria full of grace' all quite well received upon release and all decent films. Also worthy of a mention should be 'The constant gardener' which was a very pleasant suprise.

I haven't seen the entire Time Out list but '2046' is my favourite from 2005, 'A History of Violence' probably wouldn't make it into my top 10. I'm inclined to agree with Dispatches from Zembla on 'A History of Violence', I thought the film started well but later became more like its source material and didn't fulfill it's early promise.

24 December 2005

I found a bunch of cigarette cards in amongst some random postcards I have been posting amongst my own photographs on my other blog. So, I intend this to be a regular series of postings of the actresses featured on these cards, most I admit I have never heard of but a quick look on IMDB proves fruitful.

The first is Edie Adams and the reverse of all reads "Camera Studies", the actresses name and "Issued by the manufacturers of Ardath cigarettes".

23 December 2005

11 December 2005

The theme of this weekend's double bill is ambition. It occurred to me whilst watching 'Nightmare Alley' (1947) that Tyrone Power's character; Stanton Carlisle is motivated by success much in the same way as Sidney Falco played by Tony Curtis in 'Sweet Smell of Success' (1957).

Next month Eureka release 'The Savage Innocents' in their Masters of Cinema series. As this link to the official page tells us this film has been totally overlooked on TV for years.

I first saw it as part of the full Ray retrospective at NFT a year or so ago but was lucky enough to pick up a DVD copy in Spain where it is readily available along with '55 Days in Peking' , ' A Woman's Secret' and 'On Dangerous Ground' all of which are not available in US or UK. Let's hope Eureka can also get a hold of the rights to release 'Wind across the Everglades' which reminds me very much of 'The Savage Innocents'.

ICA put these two new films alongside Eggleston and Robert Gordon's 'Stranded in Canton' as well as other features inspired by his photography. The series included 'Gummo', 'Elephant' and 'The Virgin Suicides', watching the two documentaries made me want to watch these three films again, particularly 'Gummo' which I loved when it came out.

05 December 2005

This weekend's double bill gives us Preston Sturges 'Sullivan's Travels' (1941) in which Hollywood film director John L Lloyd Sullivan played by Joel McCrea sets off to make 'O Brother, where art thou?' but to do so must leave Hollywood behind. Second up; The Coen Brothers bring us their version of Ulysses and pay tribute to Preston Sturges (amongst others) with their film ‘O Brother, where art thou?’ (1990).